


Every Night in the Summer

by DaisyofGalaxy



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Family Fluff, summertime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 02:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14886047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyofGalaxy/pseuds/DaisyofGalaxy
Summary: Few fat months into his new life in Corvo Bianco, Geralt still works on his daily routine, tries different hobbies and enjoys the good and the boring parts of his new circumstances. However, nothing is easy or even predictable when you share your space with the most ambitious creature ever.A little curtain and post-Blood and Wine fic based on feelfreeindone’s prompt. #13 the things you say at the kitchen table.





	Every Night in the Summer

**Author's Note:**

> I started working on this little piece sometime in April (don't recall exactly) but it got stuck in rewriting/betareading part a bit. Hope you'll enjoy. :) 
> 
> I would also like to thank my amazing betas for all the effort they've put in it.

 

“Yen, not like this,” the Witcher hissed almost as soon as the Sorceress reached for the rolling pin. “Pierogi dough needs to be thin. And you've spilled too much flour. Leave it. I'll do this.”

“Do as you wish,” she whispered under her breath and moved away from the breadboard. She knew more than well that her attempts to protest would be in vain. Lately, they'd all been. “Is there anything I can help you with?” she asked, taking a look at the huge bowl of blueberries he had placed on the table in that brief moment as they were chatting. 

“You can prepare some hot water. Wait. I'll do that.”

“Do as you wish.” 

Those four words were becoming her new catchphrase ever since they’d moved to Corvo Bianco. Geralt cooked and baked, and didn't allow anyone near him while doing it as it was becoming more and more obvious. Obvious but not easy to accept.

“Have fun,” she told him and left a chaste kiss to his cheek. “I'll leave you and the dough alone. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.” Geralt didn’t reply. It didn’t astonish her  


 

She left the claustrophobic and  steaming kitchen and headed straight to the gardens, to the bit of grass by a huge linden that still hadn’t gotten damaged yet by the sizzling southern sun. That was where she had been finding Ciri lately, more often than not, brooding and lost in the world which only she could enter.

“Busy?” she asked gently.

“Busy and not busy,” the girl replied, looking at her from below the layer of subtle bangs, each strand swaying a bit differently from the wind. Yennefer took it as an invitation to join her. “Is he really cooking for us?”

“He is. At least this is what I've been told. How is this little one doing?” Saying that she peeked inside the muslin blanket and at the infant inside it. The boy's face was funnily squashed. His lips were parted, exposing a ridiculously pink tongue. A tiny pair of hands clutched at the witcheress’ blouse.

“Think you and Geralt heard everything. He's teething I think. Isn't it too soon, though? He's barely three months old.”

 _Three_ _months old._ That was when Yennefer realised how fast the time flew by if you spent it in good company. It also meant that she and Geralt had been in Toussaint for more than a year. A year that had not ledl to a catastrophe yet. Quite the contrary, it seemed to bring them closer, washed away the last bits of lies and secrets between them, opened a new era.

“He may be,” she replied, ghosting the boy’s cheek with her finger. The baby gulped loudly and closed his mouth but didn't wake up. “He could be colic too.”

“Only not that again. And please, stop staring at him. If he wakes up, I’ll leave him to you.”

“Is that supposed to scare me? He’s the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen. I can carry him for hours.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” the girl said. “He won’t fall asleep in his crib. When he's awake he won't stay on his back unless you're there to entertain him. It needs to change. He needs to learn that my world doesn't resolve around him. He must accept boundaries.”

“He’s three months old, Ciri.”

The Witcheress was quiet for a moment. The boy’s tongue found its way out of his mouth again. “This excuse won't work on the path, will it?” she said very slowly. “I am grateful for all you’ve done for us. I would have never made it this far without your help-”

“Why do you want to leave then?” Yennefer asked. “The Duchess is paying you well. You have us to watch after him if needed. If it’s about spoiling…”

“It’s not. I don’t know. I just feel I should move on. Go places. Do things. Perhaps it’s not something you'd like to hear from a new mother.”

“Well, I would worry if you were looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles.” Ciri wasn’t buying her arguments she felt. “Taking care of a child isn’t an easy task. If you want my opinion, and believe me I’ve seen plenty of mothers, you seem to be doing very well.”

“Well?” When she said it, it sounded almost like mockery. "If not for you and Geralt we would both be homeless by now. I'm not doing well. You two are."

They paused there. Ciri went back to her reading almost instantly, turning the old brown pages at an astonishing pace. Yennefer didn't try to prove her wrong. They tried it multiple times with Geralt, always reaching the same cold stalemate.  As for Yennefer, looking for distractions took significantly more time and effort like every single time when the baby was nearby.

She found it eventually in a group of village children playing at the hill maybe three hundred feet below them. One of them, a boy taking into account the shape of his garments, was crawling while the other children were yelling and running in all possible directions, most likely faking fear. The boy was, in turn, afraid of his parents’ reaction to the grass stains on his bright white trousers. Or if he wasn't yet, he would surely be later.

The children’s play stopped being interesting at some point. She followed for a while a greyish ball of fur that moved from one haystack to another playfully wagging its long tail.  She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of meadow flowers. Chamomile and locust tree.

“Dinner is ready,” Geralt called few minutes later. The Sorceress knew, however, that time was a treacherous beast. It could have been five minutes and it could be an hour.

“How old do you think I am?” she chuckled seeing Ciri’s hand proffered to her. The girl rolled her eyes and then whispered something about respect for elderly people and common sense. The comment made them both giggle to the Witcher’s pure consternation.

 “I think I solved the mystery of the missing eggs,” she told him proudly as soon as their paths crossed onat the way back to the house. Ciri being Ciri outran them both by a good ten steps.

 “You did?” Geralt asked with a note of odd satisfaction.

 “Yes, I did, and there is no demon. Well, unless for some reason it sells itself as a dog.”

 “I see. Countryside drama at it's best.”

 “Indeed, and you know what?” she stopped and smiled at him. “I want to take this dog in and another ten. Or a cat. I never wanted to have one. Now I do.”

 His face got serious. “The Duchess gave us this vineyard to restore it. If she sees your twenty cats-”

 “You're such a moron,” she giggled again, punching him tenderly in the ribs. “I thought you were going to say something important.”

 “Sorry to disappoint you.”

 She sped up to meet Ciri’s pace. By the house already, she turned around to glance at him again. More out of habit. She could feel the smirk on his face from afar.

  


***

  


“Why?” asked Ciri, taking a look at the plates Geralt had prepared for the three of them. The dish looked inviting with a sea of sour cream, sugar crystals and garden violets, but Yennefer was asking the same question in spirit.

 “Because it's summer. People in Redania eat blueberry pierogi in summer.”

 “We're not in Redania and you're not from Redania. Excuse my silly brain if I don't see the connection.”

 “Ciri,” the Enchantress sighed, reaching for her fork, “stop interrogating him and eat. I, for once, have nothing against Redanian cuisine as long as I don't need to cook it myself.”

 She cut one of her dumplings, releasing from it a wave of purple juice which spread over the plate almost instantly. In accordance with customs, she made sure that the juice and cream were mixed well together and briefly dipped one of the dumpling pieces in it. The true scent of the dish finally hit her nostrils.

 “You did a very good job,” she heard Ciri say. The girl had gobbled down one of the dumplings already and was now hurriedly slicing the remaining ones. “You made strawberry ones too?”

 “I didn't.”

 “Well, you did.” Saying that she impaled one of the dumplings on the fork to show him. “Big, juicy strawberry, isn't it?”

  


***

  


This one incorrect dumpling turned out to be just the beginning of her fall. Geralt sulked the whole afternoon and evening, all of a sudden being busy with attending Roach and helping villagers in their work in the vineyard, which would not be surprising if not for the fact that the Sorceress had spent three consecutive days trying to convince him to do that. Ciri laughed at them both, but did not offer Yennefer the support she needed so much. The opportunity to resolve the issue hadn't arrived until the late evening when the sun was down and the air began to smell of vegetation and resonated with the sound crickets residing somewhere in the fields of barley not that far away.

“You better be kidding,” the Enchantress snorted, seeing him retrieve  their spare blankets from one of the chests in the dining room. She placed the baby back in his wicker basket and approached him. Geralt peeked at her but didn't say anything. “Alright, that is interesting.” He gave her another blunt look. “I'm sorry.”

“You're not sorry,” the Witcher replied, still clutching the fabrics as she was giving him a well-deserved hug. His body seemed to be made of marble or some other horribly impractical material. “You're just angry that that dumpling happened to be in the batch,” he added, still stiff like a string. “When did you even manage to replace them? When did you start helping me like this?”

“Remember the Yule party last year?” she asked, instantly regretting her honesty. “I'm really sorry, darling.”

“What about your birthday?” She stayed silent. “Dinner last week? Perfect. Just perfect.”

 She let go of him and looked him in the eye. He still appeared unconvinced. “In my defence I never intended any harm. I just wanted to help, strengthen your ego a bit.”

 “And I thought I was good enough to participate in the food competition in Beauclair this autumn. Yen, I would have made a fool out of myself.”

 “You would not,” she told him. _Everyone_ _there is cheating_ was next in the queue, but she decided to skip it for the sake of him ever speaking to her again. She dragged him towards the chairs and sat him down, taking a seat herself in the one next to it. Her fingers reached for his.

 “Was there anything I did myself?” he asked after a while. Now for a change resignation resonated in his voice. His fingers grasped at hers ever so gently.

 “Let me think,” she started and there was plenty she needed to think about, to make up to be exact. “Remember the chicken and oranges you made? I didn't touch anything.”

 “It was too dry.”

 “Well, perhaps I didn't do a particularly good job then.”

 “It's still too soon for such jokes, I'm afraid.”

 “Geralt,” she whispered, tightening her grip around his fingers a bit, “I am really sorry for that. You must know that I really appreciate everything you do. I don't understand the purpose but I do.”

 He didn't reply. Why would he? Yennefer knew what he would say. She felt that way too. People like them needed to be domestic and boring. People like them needed to eat pierogi at their patio and drink beer, and spend the afternoons on pointless picnics and walks. People like them needed to have a cliched life. Because for people like them normal wasn't normal. Because for people like them, normal was a victory. The only mistake she had made was trying to pursue that “normal” with fake success.

 “I love you, you know?” she said and she really meant it. “And you're right, I made a mistake. Your pierogi would be _yours_ . With _your_ hands shaping them and _your_ tongue assessing if you added enough salt already. I'm sorry that I traded  _this_ for some silly delicacies from Beauclair, even if the person who made them cooks for the Duchess. I'm sorry it took me so long to notice that.”

 “It can be fixed. May I make cucumber soup tomorrow if we're into Redanian cousine now?”

 “Absolutely not,” she chuckled. “I promise, though, that from this moment on, we'll eat whatever you prepare. Except for cucumber soup, obviously.”

 “No cucumber soup on the menu. Promise.” He smiled at her briefly. “Did you speak to Ciri?”

 “I did. She's still insisting on moving out. Could you try? She was always respecting your suggestions.”

 “Think my persuasions skills will have no use this tine,” he told her. “Doesn't change the fact, she should let it go, at least for now when he's still a baby. Hiring someone to look after him so she can take contracts? Madness.”

 “I wholeheartedly agree. Don't tell her that.”

 “I would not dare. Going back to our fight.” His hand landed gently on her leg, just where her skin and the fabric of the skirt met. “Think I can count on a little reimbursement?”

 “I think you should certainly apply for one.”

 “Any idea where to start? Should I sign in a written request?”

 “I think an oral one would be sufficient.”

 She leant in and brushed her lips to his in a kiss that quickly transformed into something more, but within the limits that the baby sleeping in another corner of the room allowed. They were getting better and better at spotting the right moments and using the opportunities for a little bit of intimacy that everyday life was bringing. Stealing time. There was no better way to put it. It wasn't much but it meant much more.

 “Ugh, get a room you two,” Ciri blurted and closed the front door that until now remained open to provide the essential, though, insufficient, ventilation. Her late evening walks had been nothing out of ordinary in their daily routine. It had started about two weeks after the delivery. Tired and overwhelmed by another sleepless night, Ciri had left the baby with Geralt and gone for a walk. He hadn’t protested that night. Neither did he protest any other night. They even insisted on this aware how much she needed it.

 “Ugh, get a room you two,” Geralt repeated after her. “A certain gentleman was looking for you earlier. I changed his nappy and he went back to sleep. He'll be awake again soon, I suspect. Yennefer took care of the laundry so you have stock for another few days ready.”

 "Thank you.”

 “Ciri,” the Sorceress whispered as the girl was inevitably approaching the basket. “Don't torture yourself into staying up all night on your own again, alright? We're both more than happy to help.”

 “He is my responsibility,” the girl said coldly. Yennefer decided to skip the talk on family and its importance this time around. “I'll be in my room. As for your quarrel, Geralt isn't a saint himself. He rubbed nettle into his skin to avoid the banquet last week.”

 “Excuse me?” she asked and glanced at the Witcher. The look on his face told her everything.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone craving more facts, the story is based in the universe presented by YenneferofVengerberg in her story "Promise". I think I have nothing to add and certainly would not introduce the little one in any other way. She did amazing job there. It's simply perfect.


End file.
